


A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

by InitialA



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 04:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6359470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InitialA/pseuds/InitialA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina sings to their daughter as Robin watches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

**Author's Note:**

> This was written almost completely on accident for Cherish the Peanut Week and I just now am getting around to cross-posting it.

She sings.

He'd loved music as a boy, the way a minstrel's tune and song could make the great hall in his father's manor feel as small and intimate as his mother's sitting room. It was a love worth giving up when he left Locksley, but a love he missed desperately until Alan-a-Dale had joined the Merry Men and filled the forest with whimsy.

How his heart aches, remembering the way his Marian had loved music too; she'd managed to teach even the most oafish of his men to jig and she'd had a fondness teasing Alan when he'd yet to compose a song she couldn't dance to.

But even now there was music in his life.

Nyssa doesn't sleep well. Roland had been much the same, fussy and needing movement before settling down, so it doesn't surprise him that Nyssa is the same. She's a Locksley, after all. So they take turns - Robin, Regina, and even Henry on the odd occasion - feeding her and soothing her, pacing around the nursery until Nyssa calmed and fell asleep.

But some nights, such as this one, the usual routine doesn't work. She doesn't screech, her belly doesn't ache, she just doesn't seem to want to sleep.

(Regina often jokes they should have named her Laila - _night_ \- due to her nocturnal habits. Those are the nights he sees the smudges under his beloved's eyes, how the worry and the lack of sleep over recent events drags on her -

She's fine, she insists. Even if she's not, she will be.

Bloody stubborn woman. He loves her despite - _because of_ \- it.)

But these same nights, the nights when Nyssa would rather watch the moon than the back of her eyelids, are the nights when Robin learns Regina's secret.

She sings.

Hers is not a voice of confidence. She wavers and breaks when she's unsure of the lyrics, she sings too softly for someone with any assurance in her lovely voice.

But it works.

Regina sings and Nyssa sleeps. Because Nyssa is, of course, a Locksley, and Regina has unwittingly woven a spell over any Locksley whose crossed her path.

The first night Regina had been gone longer than expected, Robin had crept down the hall to check on them both. He'd been startled - Regina had never sang before, not for him - but from his place in the hall he'd watched as she walked in slow circles around the nursery, crooning a soft tune he didn't recognize. He'd heard Nyssa's not-tired noises grow quieter the longer Regina sang; he'd been rooted to the spot until Regina spoke, her words just as soft as her song, "There we are. Your brother Henry was just like you, couldn't sleep unless I sang to him. And now it's our secret too - you, me, and Henry."

Robin crept back to bed before she noticed.

So Regina sings, Nyssa sleeps, and Robin watches from his place in the hall. He doesn't watch every time it happens, but sometimes when the bed is too large, too lonely without her in it, he'll slip down the hall and watch Regina weave the kind of secret magic that only a mother could know.

It's a secret that he'd love to know more about, that he'd love to let her know that he knew about it. But he supposes there are some secrets best left between a mother and her children.

So Regina sings, Nyssa sleeps, and Robin is content to listen from his place in the hall.

He'd loved music as a boy. He hopes Regina will help him teach that love of music to their children.


End file.
